


Sometimes

by arsenikitty



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Gen, Pre-relationship Doyles, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenikitty/pseuds/arsenikitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you're so alone, you don't even have an imaginary friend. You've exorcised them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes

So many lights in the city. So many people. So many voices, conversations, families, lovers, friends.  
  
He is a part of none of it.  
  
He walks the streets at night in his best suit (the one that is just  _slightly_ frayed at the cuffs, and has just  _one_ mismatched button) and looks for parties, for people having a good time. He doesn’t have to know them. He just has to hear the clink of glasses, maybe an emotional toast, or the laughter of men, women and others, too happy or tipsy to realize how loud they are being. He casually leaps over a wall, or slips through a window, or ducks under velvet ropes and joins them, smiling, lifting his glass, looking like he belongs.  
  
He never does.  
  
He never sees anyone he knows at these parties. Once or twice, he thought he saw clients, people who might know he was not welcome. (He is not really “welcome” anywhere.) He hid behind ice sculptures or curtains until the danger was past. Sometimes he does it well, and no one notices he is there. Sometimes he blends in perfectly, laughing, smiling at people whom he does not know, toasting to the success of an unfamiliar marriage or business venture.  
  
He does not know who these people are, and he does not need to know. He doesn’t know anyone in the city at all, really. He knows his landlady, and a few people in the supernatural circles, but no one of consequence. Not since—  
  
(— whenever he hits  _since,_ he takes a shot.)  
  
He doesn’t really fit in anywhere. Not the church, not the streets, not the shabby little room he keeps to sleep and drink in. He doesn’t really see much of people, these days, unless he's called in for an exorcism or the like.   
  
He wonders, as he looks at the people dancing about him, what it feels like to have a connection to the world. He thinks,  
  
 _It must be nice to have so many friends that you don't even notice when someone new arrives, because_ they _must be a friend, too._  
  
Sometimes, however, someone notices him. Someone who knows he’s unfamiliar, an interloper; someone whose sharp eyes pick up on his frayed cuffs and not  _quite_ perfectly-shined shoes. Whenever this happens, someone will come up behind him — usually a man, someone quite a bit bulkier than he is — and gently take his elbow, and he is asked in a quiet voice to leave the premises.  
  
Sometimes, they are a bit rougher.  
  
-  
  
Sometimes, just after he leaves, a woman arrives. She looks around, and sighs, and pulls out a flask of her purse.  
  
There are so many people to see at the parties, but she still feels so very alone.  


End file.
